HRIDAY NARAYAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith. The petition filed by two petitioners in the year 2020, being numbered as Criminal Writ Petition No.49/2020 impleaded the State of Maharashtra through its Chief Secretary along with the Commissioner of Police and the Dy. Commissioner of Police as party respondents. In addition, the Dy. Commissioner of Police, Zone IV, Senior Police Inspector of Crime Branch, Senior Police Inspector, Wadala Truck Terminal police station and Senior Police Inspector, Antop Hill police station were impleaded as respondents. During its pendency, the petition is amended and the Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI, is added as respondent no.9. Respondent no.8 is Ankit Mishra, who was initially added as the petitioner, but since he did not either sign the petition or affirm the same, he is transposed as respondent no.8, as according to the petitioners, he is also an eye witness to the incident in respect of which the petitioners have a grievance and they claim registration of FIR and action against the police officials who were impleaded as respondents for violating the orders given by the Court pertaining to compulsory registration of FIR and installation of CCTV cameras in all police stations. Initially, the petition also sought a relief of transferring the investigation of custodial death of Vijay Singh to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and a relief is also sought to make payment of compensation to the family of the deceased and also to the petitioner and respondent no.8 for the atrocities meted out to them.

(2.) Upon the said Writ Petition being filed, praying for the aforesaid reliefs, notices were issued to the respondents and it was noted by the Court that at the relevant time, ADR inquiry was still going on and by order dtd. 17/8/2020, a direction was issued to the Public Prosecutor to file a comprehensive report, bringing out on record the steps taken towards investigation of the alleged custodial death of victim Vijay Singh, son of petitioner no.1, where the petitioner no.2 and respondent no.8 were stated to be the co-victims and eye witnesses.

(3.) The petition came to be admitted on 16/2/2023 and was permitted to be amended from time to time.